The Forest of Myrrh (Imhotep Book 3)

by Jerry Dubs

  The women had run into the forest, but the huge one was wearing a yellow dress, impossible to hide even on a night like this when Khonsu was resting. The others wore white gowns that flashed when they moved, but melted into the play of shadows when they rested.

  The yellow, however, called to him across the dark forest.

  He closed the space between himself and the entry to the woods. He pushed the low branches of the nearest tree out of the way and then jerked his arm back as thorns dug into his skin. He touched one of the wounds, brought his hand to his mouth and tasted his own blood. The metallic edge to it made him smile.

  Soon he would taste the blood of the women.

  He looked off to his right, where the yellow dress had gone. They were out of sight now, but he knew he would catch them. Catch them and kill them.

  He tilted his head back and roared, not the name of a leader or of a country or even that of a god. He shouted his own name, stretching out the ‘U’ and then the ‘A,’ long and loud. Then he leaned forward and began an easy jog through the night between the rows of jagged trees.

  - 0 -

  Admiral Ahmose and Imhotep and thirty of the sailors armed with clubs and knives worked their way through the village. They found the bloody battleground where the native warriors had been attacked. The dead lay with unseeing eyes, the wounded who could crawl or walk were moving away from the fight.

  Ahmose grabbed the first upright man who was dressed in the tight kilt of the Two Lands.

  “What happened, who attacked? Where are they?”

  The man, two arrows bristling from his thigh, pointed to the west. “We couldn’t see them, didn’t know where they were,” he gasped. “We found some of the native warriors crouched behind the huts. We divided into three groups. The others circled around them. Ours charged at them.”

  As the man talked, Imhotep knelt beside him and studied the arrows.

  Standing now he shook his head. “They look like arrows from the bowmen of Ta-Seti,” he said. “King Djoser’s personal guard included many of the warriors from Ta-Seti.”

  Suddenly a loud roar sounded from beyond the village. The men all turned toward it as the two syllables, long, drawn bass notes of confidence and aggression made the air shake like a rolling clap of thunder.

  When the sound stopped, Admiral Ahmose, his face tight and worried asked, “What is Yuya?”

  - 0 -

  The women wound through several turns. At each branching of the maze, Queen Ati led them without hesitation deeper and deeper into the thorny forest.

  Suddenly the night erupted in a loud roar and the women paused and listened to the shout. Queen Ati thought immediately of the aggressive roar of a lion asserting his dominance. Akila felt her core vibrate in fear. The sound, the stark angry silhouettes of the trees, the clear darkness of the ancient night, combined to awake primal emotions.

  She was deathly afraid and she wanted to live.

  Pharaoh Hatshepsut, her eyes calm as she looked back through the maze, said, “Yuya. I know that name. I know I have heard it before.” Then she touched Queen Ati’s shoulder. “We should move on.”

  Queen Ati took a few steps and then paused. “Here,” she said, pointing to the wall of myrrh trees. She tilted her head up the path. “This will wind to the left, loop, follow a circle around the outside of the maze and then double back to this spot. But,” she grunted as she got to her hands and knees, “we can crawl through here and avoid all of that path.”

  She reached into the branches of one of the low trees that filled the gap between the mature trees and pushed. She suppressed a cry as the thorns stabbed at her arms.

  Akila squatted beside her and, using the short spear she had taken from the hut, she tried to pry the tangled branches apart. One of the branches snapped off and fell, its thorns scraping against Queen Ati’s bare shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Akila said quickly and withdrew the spear.

  She watched as the queen sighed deeply and then, putting her head down, she began to crawl though the tangle of branches. The thorns tore her skin and ripped her dress, but she gritted her teeth and continued her slow progress against the wall of pain.

  Akila stifled a gasp and looked away. This is what fear drives us to do, she thought.

  “A Medjay from Ta-Seti!” Pharaoh Hatshepsut said in triumph as she knelt beside Akila. “Yuya is a warrior from Ta-Seti. I have never seen him, but he is said to be a giant.” She looked up the path. Akila stared at Pharaoh Hatshepsut expecting to see the fear that she felt reflected in the ruler’s face, but instead she saw excitement in Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s eyes and a determined set on her lips.

  There was a long, gasping moan from the undergrowth. Akila turned to see the gray bottoms of Queen Ati’s feet and beyond it her obese body lying still on the ground. Then the body quivered and the queen moved again accompanied by the shuffling sound of ground being pushed aside and the scratchy scrape of wooded thorns on exposed skin.

  - 0 -

  On the far side of the village clearing Admiral Ahmose and Imhotep found the remains of the second battle. There were dead soldiers here from the Two Lands, but among them were others – darker skinned men, heavily muscled, their skin tattooed and scarred.

  While Ahmose examined the dead and took count, Imhotep pounded his staff angrily against the dark earth and looked through the swirling smoke and fire. Disoriented, he turned to the nearest soldier and said, “Which way is the queen’s hut?”

  The soldier looked around trying to get his bearings. “I don’t know Lord Imhotep. I have been aboard the ships. The lake is that direction.” he pointed past the bodies toward the eastern edge of the village.

  Imhotep looked in that direction then turned back the other way. “That’s where the shout came from,” Imhotep said to himself. Then he touched Admiral Ahmose’s shoulder.

  “We need to hurry,” he said, nodding toward the distance.

  Ahmose stood and said, “I agree, Imhotep. They are Medjay warriors. There are five dead here and we don’t know how many there are out there, but there must be dozens more. And they are fierce fighters.” He turned to the soldiers and said, “Remember your training. When we meet the enemy, stand shoulder to shoulder and charge together. They are strong fighters, but they are not of the Two Lands and they will fall beneath our feet.”

  Then he turned and led them toward the burning hut of Queen Ati.

  - 0 -

  Pharaoh Hatshepsut pulled herself through the last of the thorny tangle and quickly got to her feet. Unconsciously she wiped dirt from the blade of the khopesh sword and looked back into the tunnel they had just crawled through.

  Although the moon was hidden tonight, the sky was filled with stars, so many glistening stars, some shining brightly, some winking as if they struggled to stay alight. And beyond, just touching the horizon, was a river of light. Akila would know it as the Milky Way, brighter here in the ancient night sky than she would have seen in modern Egypt.

  Pharaoh Hatshepsut looked at the collection of 200 billion stars whose light took millions of years to fall from the sky and she saw danger. The light gave a glow to the air in the forest of myrrh, filling it with enough radiance that it was easy to see the ground and the rocks and the trees.

  And looking back through the torturous path through the thorns, Pharaoh Hatshepsut saw that the light was dancing like a flame on a small swatch of yellow cloth from Queen Ati’s dress. Hanging on a sharp point at the far side of the thorny wall, the yellow linen was a beacon for the watchful eyes of a tracker.

  If the man who was following them was Yuya and if he was even a shadow of his reputation, he would surely see the yellow cloth and then the tunnel Queen Ati had made through the thorns.

  She looked down at her own white gown, visible, but not as alien as the yellow of the cloth hanging far out of reach.

  She slipped the blade of the khopesh under the right strap of the gown and cut it, then the other strap. Stepping from the linen that now
lay at her feet, she picked up a handful of dirt and rubbed it over her body.

  Queen Ati had seen the yellow cloth, too, and realizing now what Pharaoh Hatshepsut was doing, she gathered dirt and helped rub it over Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s body. “I am sorry,” she said softly, ignoring the pain from the hundred cuts on her own shoulders and arms and back as she helped cover Pharaoh Hatshepsut with camouflaging dirt.

  “No,” Pharaoh Hatshepsut said, “We will make this work for us. Leave your robe on. When we hear him begin to come through, you and Akila will run past here and on out of sight. It will lure him on and capture his attention.”

  She gripped the khopesh with both hands and said, “I will wait here.”

  Fallen

  Yuya could hear the crackle of the burning fire in the village. He could smell the smoke and, sniffing harder, he could smell the scent of the women he followed – the floral aroma of their oils mixed with the acrid sweat of fear. But he didn’t need to follow the scent; the night light showed scuffs in the rocky ground and overturned stones.

  They are running and they are frightened, he thought. Soon, they will be dead.

  The noise from below had changed now. There were fewer screams of pain and there were more shouts: the barking of commanders organizing their men, of chaotic calls of people gathering water to douse fires, of moans of wounded men calling for help.

  Soon they would realize that the burning hut of the queen as empty and then they would begin to search for the women.

  Yuya had quickly understood that the women had fled to this thorny forest to find a safe place to hide. The trees were planted to create a tangled path and there were places where the path split.

  He didn’t know why the trees had been planted this way. He didn’t know why bones broke so easily or why blood poured quickly from one wound and slowly from another. He didn’t know why the gods had given him so much strength when others were so weak.

  And none of that mattered to him.

  All that mattered now was that he was who he was and that as long as the women left such an easy trail to follow, this maze was not a maze at all.

  He would soon catch up to them, kill them and then return to Ta Seti and claim the dwarf and the giraffe Governor Seni had promised. He smiled now as he thought of them: the strange long legs and the short, pudgy legs, the long beautiful neck and the tiny, hardly there at all neck.

  Suddenly he thought of the snake.

  How would it go about trying to swallow the huge woman in the yellow robe? That would be fun to watch.

  - 0 -

  Standing by the tangled maze, Pharaoh Hatshepsut held the khopesh at shoulder height and concentrated on steadying her breath. With each breath her eyes adjusted to the starlit night. She could see the black branches of the myrrh trees and the glaring yellow patch of cloth at the other side of the thorny wall.

  Her hearing amplified every sound, her heartbeat, the foot shuffling of Queen Ati and Akila as they waited for her signal to run, and now a softer padding sound, a deeper, heavier breath.

  She nodded to the other women and they turned and ran down the maze path.

  On the other side of the tree line, she heard the footsteps stop and then the light touch of fingers on the ground. A sharp intake of breath, the near silent tug of cloth on thorn as the yellow linen was lifted from the branch. And now, the brushing of loose dirt, the rolling of tiny pebbles as the man who was chasing them began to crawl through the tunnel Queen Ati had created with her torn flesh.

  Time slowed and Pharaoh Hatshepsut remembered when she was a girl and assassins had chased her through the empty temple rooms. She had found that otherworldly warrior, Bata. Sent by the gods from another time, he had saved her. She smiled to herself at the memory, how he had stood in wait, as she was now. She had been the bait, waiting inside the room for the assassins to find her.

  She had been afraid, so very afraid, and excited, too, because the gods had been watching her, weighing her ka and her bravery.

  And she had been victorious then. Bata and Hapu had wielded the blades that killed the men, but her bravery had made it possible. And now, standing in the darkness far from her world, she would be as brave and she would be victorious.

  - 0 -

  Yuya saw the cloth, saw the women run and, without meaning to, he had counted the feet. Four. One of the women was not there.

  He picked the yellow cloth from the thorn and held it to his nose. It smelled of lavender and fear. Dropping the cloth, he silently squatted and examined the broken branches in the wall of thorns.

  And then he saw smooth lines of dark shadows on the far side of the tangled branches. Legs! The legs of the third woman!

  He smiled. She is lying in wait for me. She thinks she has set a trap.

  He began to crawl through the broken branches. Thorns tore at him like a hundred sharp knives. Part of his mind appreciated the bravery of the woman who had pushed through this pain. But that was what fear did, he knew.

  And fear also leads to bad decisions. Like a woman thinking that she can trap a giant.

  - 0 -

  Queen Ati and Akila waited beyond the turn of the maze path. The top and back of the queen’s dress had turned from yellow to red from the many cuts she had suffered clearing a path through the thorns.

  Gently, Akila touched the queen and said, “Don’t worry, Pharaoh Hatshepsut is a warrior.”

  Queen Ati nodded. “A few turns ahead there is a burning pit. We can use that.”

  Akila shook her head. The queen was already planning the next step of their defense.

  The queen twisted and reached up to her shoulder. “Can you help me?” she said, tugging at the strap of her gown.

  - 0 -

  Pharaoh Hatshepsut watched the shadow slowly crawl closer.

  The man was immense! His shoulders were wider than the disfigured shoulders of the queen, his arms were the size of another man’s legs. A tangle of dark hair, blacker than the night shadows, trailed down his back, catching itself on the thorns and then tearing through them, leaving behind a trail of newly broken branches and clumps of hair.

  Flat on his stomach, he was halfway through the tunnel. His long arms reached out in front – and they held no weapons, she saw – as he pulled himself forward.

  Closer.

  Slowly he pulled his elbows under his chest and before Pharaoh Hatshepsut realized his intent, Yuya uncoiled, striking like a snake.

  His arm, impossibly long, shot through the last barrier of thorns and his hand grabbed her ankle. His thick arm twisted and the pressure nearly broke her ankle. The leverage of her leg forced her sideways and she fell. One hand released its grip on the khopesh as she reached for the earth to soften her fall.

  She landed heavily and twisted to see the giant's other arm shoot from the thorns. Using one hand she swung the heavy blade of the khopesh toward the threatening shadow. She leaned into the swing, giving it all of her strength, whipping her arm and wrist.

  The blade cut through the air. It met resistance and cut through it.

  Rolling onto her side, Pharaoh Hatshepsut drew her legs under herself and out of reach of the long arms. But the arms were gone.

  The shadow had disappeared.

  Looking at the ground by the tunnel opening she saw a thick, twitching piece of meat. Staring she realized it was a severed thumb and now, from the far side of the thorn wall, came a long, loud scream of pain and anger.

  - 0 -

  As Pharaoh Hatshepsut pushed herself to her feet, her twisted ankle unwilling to take her weight, Yuya pulled a rock from his leather bag.

  He wrapped four long fingers around it, spreading them wide to compensate for the loss of his thumb. Staring through the thicket at the rising shadow of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, he drew back his arm and then lunged toward her, sending his hate, his pain, and the rock through the thorny branches to his enemy.

  Pharaoh Hatshepsut heard the snap of twigs and thought the giant was crashing through the thorny tangle. As
she turned toward the sound, the rock struck her shoulder, bounced upward and ended its flight against her temple.

  The world turned black and she fell.

  The Search

  “Admiral Ahmose!”

  Reluctant to delay his march toward the hut of Queen Ati, Admiral Ahmose ignored the call and increased his speed, waving his hands to urge the sailors onward. He had counted the bodies at the two battlefields and knew that half of the soldiers of the Two Lands were lying dead behind him. But he didn’t know if the survivors had reached Pharaoh Hatshepsut or if they had been ambushed elsewhere by the Medjay.

  What are Medjays doing here? he asked himself. They are supposed to police Ta-Seti, not attack villages in another land.

  Hearing running footfalls behind him, he turned his head as he continued walking. Cheti and King Parahu were running toward him amid a shower of red embers that floated down from the burning huts.

  “Admiral Ahmose,” Cheti repeated, “King Parahu wants a word with you.”

  The young translator tugged at Admiral Ahmose’s arm. Admiral Ahmose jerked it away and spun angrily toward Cheti and King Parahu.

  “Is this how you protect your guests?” he shouted, waving his arms at the burning village. “I swear by Horus that if Pharaoh Hatshepsut is harmed, all of the armies of the Two Lands will descend on this insignificant pile of dung and kill every one of you. You have no idea of the wrath ... ”

  Admiral Ahmose raised his hand as he felt someone put their hand on his shoulder. Turning toward the hand he saw that it was Imhotep’s hand that gripped him now.

  He glared at Imhotep, angry at having been interrupted, but any thought of scolding Imhotep vanished when he saw his face.

  The man Admiral Ahmose thought that he knew was gone. Eyes and mouth that usually displayed humor and understanding barely masked fury now. Strength and iron will radiated from his face and the grip on Admiral Ahmose’s shoulder was that of a falcon, not a dove.